Organisation launched to support City dads

Nearly half of City dads say missing their children is their biggest daily challenge, with 45 per cent says their work life balance is less than satisfactory.

Nearly half of City dads say missing their children is their biggest daily challenge, with 45 per cent says their work life balance is less than satisfactory.

The survey of 753 fathers who work in the CIty comes at the launch of a new organisation, Cityfathers, which is calling for a change in attitudes towards dads.

More than a quarter of those surveyed took no paternity leave or did not take the full two weeks. Cityfathers was set up by Louisa Symington-Mills who founded Citymothers in late 2012 as a networking forum for working mothers. Cityfathers was launched to provide a similar offering for working fathers. At the launch Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called on employers to ditch old-fashioned attitudes that discourage men from taking time off for paternity leave and said dads should not just see themselves as breadwinners but carers too. His wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez interrupted him at one point to say that dads who looked after their children had "more cojones" and that taking care of children "does not affect your level of testosterone".

Cityfathers aims to "provide peer support to those balancing careers and children; to help members achieve flexibility in the workplace and maintain career trajectory; and to provide a schedule of informative events at family-friendly times, covering topics relevant to working parents".

The organisation organises regular social networking events in the City of London and Canary Wharf at family-friendly times – typically lunchtime – for members to meet other working parents..